I’m going to have a few hundred pounds of apples from my orchard this year. My family loves applesauce so that’s what we’ll use a lot of them for. I’m looking at ways I can streamline the operation. In past years we’ve washed the apples in the sink but that’s a pretty significant step.
I’ve seen small farms that have conveyor belt produce washers which could do it really quickly. I have nowhere near the quantity to justify something like that, but has anyone seen any small scale washing stations that could do a few hundred pounds of apples and not cost a ton of money? I’m picturing something I could connect a garden hose to and it spins the apples around or something. Thanks.
I would get two large tubs, plastic bins, or coolers. Both full of water, one the washing one with a healthy amount of bleach, the other for rinsing with only a small dash of bleach.
I’m in the same boat. My quantity of apples is increasing every year. I make applesauce but it’s pretty labour intensive. I’m looking to switch to cider when I’ve got enough apples where I can get more than a few gallons of juice.
We typically just float the apples in big mineral tubs lined with plastic liners. We canned 31 quarts in 2 hours last year with just my wife and I doing the work, and my 6 yr old daughter “helping”. 100 quarts in 4 hrs is very within reach for us, but I’m not sure we could use that much sauce in a year.
I would suggest build a bubbler. There’s vids on youtube, just get a heavy tub(we use a cattle trough with a drain), make a simple manifold out of white pvc, drill holes in the runs, hook up to a shopvac on blow, fill with water, turn on.
Works great for veg.
Manifold will want to float. I ended up tying some old dive weights to it.